1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for producing a tertiary amine having high quality and the having little non-amines such as esters and alcohols, which is less colored, and which can be converted into a derivative without turbidity.
2. Description of the Background
An aliphatic tertiary amine prepared from tallow, coconut oil, palm oil and the like is an important intermediate for household and industrial products, used in many applications that include a softener for clothes, an antistatic agent, a gasoline additive, a shampoo, a conditioner, a microbicide and a detergent.
As a process for producing an aliphatic tertiary amine, a process for producing it from a fat through an aliphatic acid and a process for producing it from a fat through an aliphatic higher alcohol are known. However, the aliphatic tertiary amine produced by these processes has problems that it is much colored in the conversion into derivatives and that it becomes turbid in a long-term storage to give products poor in appearance.
DE-A 1 768 743 discloses adding an alkali to an amine product, being primary, secondary or tertiary, having a molecular weight of 80 or larger, and distilling the mixture to remove esters and non-reacted aliphatic alcohols.
However DE-A 1 768 743 merely discloses broadly that amine is treated by alkali, it doesn't disclose that the amine which is represented by following formula (I) is treated by NaOH or KOH in order to remove ester or unreacted aliphatic alcohol; ##STR1##
wherein R.sub.1 and R.sub.2 being a saturated or unsaturated hydrocarbon having 6 to 28 carbon atoms, R.sub.3 being a saturated or unsaturated hydrocarbon having 1 to 5 carbon atoms.
JP-A 4-266 858, corresponding to EP-A 500038, discloses that a crude aliphatic tertiary amine product is contacted with an adsorbent in the presence of an inorganic alkali, but the added alkali has been removed out through an adsorbent before the subsequent step of distillation.
However, when an aliphatic tertiary amine is produced from a fat through an aliphatic higher alcohol in particular, the process has problems that such impure non-amines as esters (wax), alcohols, and the like contaminate the aliphatic tertiary amine, that the impure non-amines cannot be eliminate completely, and that derivatives made from the aliphatic tertiary amine become turbid in a long-term storage to give products poor in appearance.